Appreciating Your Pastor: From the Heart of the Pastor’s Wife

I’m often asked how you can pray for your pastor, or how you can best encourage him. Today I am re-posting words I wrote several years ago. I thought I would write a new post, but this one best summarizes how you can love your pastor best as we celebrate Pastor Appreciation Month this month. I’m grateful for my husband pastor, as well as the other pastors I have the honor of watching serve day in and day out. It is the love for the people who walk in the doors of any church, and make up the fabric of any community, that will always be the motivation why any Pastor serves the way they do.

October has been dubbed, “Pastor Appreciation Month,” but for me, the wife of a Pastor, I’ve learned the importance of appreciating my pastor husband everyday. The Scripture is full of mandates and encouragement to honor, respect, esteem, and pray for our pastors/leaders. It is, for me, one thing to love and support my pastor simply because he’s my husband, but quite another to esteem and respect his leadership as a major contributor to my spiritual growth apart from what he already does to spiritually lead our home. My husband has been my pastor for 15 of the 17 years we have been married, and over the years, there are some specific things I’ve learned show him great appreciation as my pastor.

*Pray for him. This may seem so obvious, but it’s what makes or breaks our pastors. Why? It is not simply that we pray, but rather what we…